Having a yarn

We are always delighted to welcome visitors to the Stromness Library, and even more delighted when they come back for a return visit.

In the last couple of weeks we've had visits from two former writers in residence at Stromness Library, Jan Natanson, and Nalini Paul , as well as our Ravelry friend Westendangela.

While Jan and Nalini shared news of recent writing projects - Jan has a community play in production, and Nalini has a poetry book coming out soon - when knitters get together the talk soon turns to work in progress and recent projects on the knitting needles. 

We were rather pleased to be able to show off our library cushions, and Becky even posed for a photo beside the windows which were the inspiration for the design. 

photo by Westendangela

Watch this space for news about the date of our move to the new building, but in the meantime here is a sneaky preview of the cushions in their new home.

Now doesn't that look comfy?

Just perfect for relaxing with a good book, or even a bit of knitting!

Bookmarks and biscuits.

As we continue our preparations for the move to our lovely new building, we've been reflecting on our favourite memories of Stromness Library, and we would love to hear yours. 

Perhaps you remember coming to the library as a child and have memories of previous librarians, or you visited us while you were in Stromness on holiday. We would love to hear your stories, memories, favourite books and encounters with the library cats. 

Do please get in touch, either through the comments below or by dropping us an email. We are gathering all these stories from and about the library for our New Chapter exhibition which will celebrate the history of the library in Stromness when we move to the new building. We want to capture as many stories as we can from the most important part of any library - you, the people who visit it. 

Over the years we have worked here there have been many memorable moments, some funny, some sad, and some unrepeatable! 

Today we were recalling the many items we have found inside returned books. Along with the more predictable discoveries of bookmarks, letters, bills and the like, we can reveal that we once opened a book to discover a custard cream biscuit between the pages. Whether this had been inserted as makeshift book mark, or left behind by accident during a particularly exciting reading-while-biscuit-eating-session, we will never know. 

When we mentioned our find to a colleague in Kirkwall library, he claimed to have once come across a rasher of streaky bacon being used as a book mark. While we were unable to verify this claim, we would strongly discourage our readers from reading while eating a fried breakfast  - just in case.

If you are in need of a bookmark we have lots here to choose from, including our very own Orkney library bookmarks -  save the custard creams to go with your cup of tea!